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Brigitte Bardot to seek Russian citizenship if sick elephants killed

Former actress and now animals rights activist Brigitte Bardot smiles after a meeting on the environment with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, unseen, at the Elysee Palace in Paris, Thursday, Sept. 27, 2007. (AP / Jacques Brinon)

The 1960s screen diva says authorities have ignored her "numerous proposals" to save Baby and Nepal, a pair of 42-year-old elephants dying of tuberculosis at a Lyon zoo.

In a statement on her foundation's website Bardot says that if the elephants are killed she will request Russian citizenship "to flee this country that is now just a graveyard for animals."

This week France was shocked to learn Depardieu, an Academy Award-winner and pillar of French cinema, had received Russian citizenship after he was called "pathetic" by France's prime minister in a bust-up over the country's proposed 75 per cent income tax for the superrich.